A House Divided: Battle for Melnikov's Home

"Stand up there," says Viktor Melnikov in a hushed voice, gesturing toward a wooden balcony in the studio of the house his father built, a vast and airy room with 38 hexagonal windows. "It's not very high, but when you're up there you feel like you're on top of a mountain."


Viktor's sister, Lyudmila, is no less respectful of her father's creation.


"I was a teenager when the house was finished, and I was afraid that living in a round house would make me dizzy," she says. "But I didn't even notice, and I loved it from the first moment."


Viktor, 79, and Lyudmila, 80, are the son and daughter of architect Konstantin Melnikov, whose famous family house has been an international archetype of avant-garde style since it was built on Krivoarbatsky Pereulok in 1929.


The house, for the past five years hidden under heavy scaffolding, has faded into relative obscurity, due in part to a rift between the two people who perhaps love it most. Though both brother and sister say they want the house to be turned into a museum, a long-standing family argument over inheritance rights has evolved into a legal battle that may prevent that from ever happening.


The tangle of accusations exchanged since the lawsuits began in 1988 is too thick to unravel, but this much is clear: Until the ownership issue is resolved and the Melnikov son and daughter renew relations -- they have not spoken to each other for six years -- the house will not be any closer to becoming a museum than it was when the architect died, virtually unknown, in 1974.


That a private home was allowed to be constructed in the early years of the workers' state and survived the Soviet era only to become the pawn in a family squabble is an irony not lost on the Melnikovs. And the siblings' unparalleled regard for their father, a rising star of world architecture whose career was halted by the Soviets in 1936, makes the house's dubious fate all the more poignant.


Viktor Melnikov, an artist, has lived in the house since its completion. But his sister, a retired chemist, lives in a cramped, first-floor apartment on the northern edge of Moscow. A painting of the house on the wall of her study and a collection of her father's biographies are some of Lyudmila's only mementoes of her former home -- her brother now refuses her entrance.


"It's unconscionable for anyone to live there," she says. "It should only be a museum."


Konstantin Melnikov's house, located two blocks from the Stary Arbat, drew considerable attention as soon as the foundation was begun in 1927. Melnikov had made a name for himself in 1925 at the Paris Exposition of Decorative Arts, where the Soviet pavilion he designed was awarded the Grand Prix. The pavilion, one of the few national designs to use modern architecture, incorporated the works of other Soviet artists of the time; the interior design combined photomontages by Alexander Rodchenko and notes by Vladimir Mayakovsky.


The Melnikov house is constructed of two intersecting cylinders that meet at a spiral staircase. Much larger than it appears from the street, the brick-and-stucco house has 200 windows and a roof-top patio. A small hexagonal window in the back of the living room, the front wall of which is glass from floor to ceiling, was installed to catch the late afternoon sun and provide a glimpse of a small church that once stood behind the house.


Though some critics praised the house, many focused on its blatant individualism and exaltation of the family unit rather than the worker's collective. But Melnikov believed his experiment with cylinders, which some historians say was inspired partially by American grain elevators, could have relevance for the construction of public and communal housing. In the late 1920s, Melnikov also built several worker's clubs and bus garages, most of which still survive. But the official popularity of avant-garde architecture began to wane, and in 1936 all modern design was denounced as "formalist."


Though Melnikov was not arrested and was permitted to stay in his house, he was never allowed to build again. Only 20 of the 80 projects he drafted in his life were ever built, the last when he was only 45.


Melnikov's wife died a few years after her husband, and the house and all its possessions passed to the two children. The siblings were getting along then and Lyudmila, who had spent most of her adult life in Central Asia, agreed to let her brother live in the house and oversee her father's archives with the goal of eventually turning the house into a museum. On this they both agree.


After this point, however, the two Melnikovs offer different versions of events. Viktor Melnikov says that his sister filed suit to obtain half the home when she realized the potential value of the house, which had been made a historical monument in 1987. He and his daughter, who spends all her time on the legal battle, say they fear that Lyudmila wants to have the house physically divided in half.


Lyudmila Melnikov says that she filed suit because her brother took over the house as if he were the sole owner. She says that she simply wants her legal rights as half-owner recognized and that she has no intention of living in the house.


In the meantime, the lawsuits have turned into countersuits and appeals and the house remains under scaffolding. Though renovation work continues slowly, thanks to money allocated by the city government, much of the house is in bad shape, with cracked ceilings and bare, rough floors.


The lawsuits have been expensive for the Melnikovs, both pensioners who are struggling to cover their legal costs. Viktor and his daughter, Yekaterina, seem no less weary than Lyudmila and her son, Alexei, when they talk about the battle.


"I love the house, and I'm suffering for it," says Viktor Melnikov.


"If my father knew what was happening now, he would die all over again," says Lyudmila Melnikov.


In only one sense does their father have the last word. Barely visible beneath the scaffolding on the front of the house are three words imprinted in the facade: "Konstantin Melnikov. Architect."